This disclosure relates in general to radiation systems and methods and in particular to methods and systems for patient identification using medical images.
Patient identification confirms or negates the identity of a patient to whom radiotherapy is intended or planned. It is an important process to prevent accidental mistreatment, especially in fractionated radiotherapy where the total treatment dose is delivered in multiple sessions over time. To prevent patient mismatches, radiotherapy centers usually implement workflow processes and guidelines for patient identification. These processes can be as simple as asking control questions such as the patient's name and date of birth etc. Some more sophisticated processes use barcode or fingerprint recognition systems. These and other conventional patient identification processes are implemented as a step separate from the treatment and are more or less prone to errors. For instance, patients may have the same or similar names and the illness or anxiety may hinder them to respond to their own names. The control questions may be easily omitted, especially in situations where the daily treatment plan is delayed and multiple patients are waiting or patients need to be rescheduled to other treatment systems. The barcode or fingerprint recognition systems may lead to residual errors as the patient barcode or fingerprint may be checked too early before the patient is actually positioned in the treatment room for treatment.
There is therefore a need for a patient identification system with improved accuracy and robustness in general. There is a need for a method that can be integrated with existing patient identification systems to verify the correctness of the identification process. There is a need for a patient identification system which can be implemented as an integral part of the treatment process and automatically performed to reduce the risks of exchanging patients by mistakes between activities.